While iPad & Co. are already part of the basic equipment of technology-lovers many hotels are going even further. Here we present the hi-tech hotels which have already introduced tomorrow s technology.

　　Tablet computers, flatscreens, 3D games' consoles - at this time of the year modern technology will be on many Christmas lists. While iPad & Co. are already part of the basic equipment of technology-lovers many hotels are going even further. Here we present the hi-tech hotels which have already introduced tomorrow's technology.

　　Iris scanner and iPhone as a door opener

　　In the hotel Blow Up Hall 50/50 in Poznan, Poland the guest becomes part of a video installation done by the artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer as soon as they enter the hotel. The hotel is full of hi-tech devices: conventional room keys and room numbers cannot be found in Blow Up Hall. Instead every guest is given an iPhone which serves as their room key. The Nine Zero Hotel in Boston, USA has also introduced keyless entry and uses an iris scanner on the room doors.

　　Remote-controlled rooms

　　The citizenM hotel Amsterdam City in the Netherlands has gone even further with remote-controlled curtains, coloured room lighting and electronic control of the air conditioning as well as the usual features of fast WiFi and video on demand. The so-called MoodPad controls all these functions, resembling a futuristic on-board computer.

　　Exercise for your hot coffee

　　A very unusual hi-tech experiment was started in 2010 in the Crowne Plaza Hotel Copenhagen Towers in Copenhagen, Denmark, where every guest was given a voucher for the restaurant if they used an exercise bike for 15 minutes and thereby generated electricity for the hotel's own system.